Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Another Monday West African Peanut Soup - joyful chopping in the Nickelsville kitchen, this time Scott being a chef chopper. Everybody is safe and sound, Mike much better after his bout with bronchitis/pneumonia, Karen playing solitaire on the table, people listening to music on personal devices and in the room next to the kitchen a film playing on TV screen; the frequent hunting cello solos were quite attention grabbing, so I asked Tracy about the film's title, and she said it was 'August Rush'.

I just checked this 2007 film on Rotten Tomatoes website (film ratings and reviews) and found this synopsis: A drama with fairy tale elements, where an orphaned musical prodigy uses his gift as a clue to finding his birth parents. 84% of the voting public liked it, although this was the featured comment: 'Though featuring a talented cast, August Rush cannot overcome the flimsy direction and schmaltzy plot.' Oh well, schmaltzy plot gets you through another rainy day of being homeless - people seemed to be glued to the screen, maybe because the movie's fairy tail appeal: 'Its almost desperate earnestness actually turns out to be its greatest appeal -- August Rush does believe in fairy tales, it does it does it does!' (from another review on the site). And who does not - I'm going to watch it next time I'm in need of serious uplifting...

Doc Gurley

In December I linked to an article from Doc Gurley, a San Francisco based physician, who has a column in SFGate, as well as her own blog, and who often writes about the issues of being homeless. Her February 17th column is titled: How many Bay Area parolees are homeless? Sentenced to indefinite homelessness, and explores the subject of frequently older and frequently ill former inmates on the streets, who, due to incarceration, might have lost all the benefits they previously had (think blind or diabetic, mentally or physically challenged person now not qualifying for housing or food or medical vouchers - because the 'system' has them marked as 'receiving' in prison, while there is no automatic reconnection to benefits once a person is released). There are not many places which will tend to their needs (I understand even Nickelsville would not be able to help much: one has to be fairly stable functioning and not of 'interest to police' to be admitted), so the full article is well worth reading - it contains interesting thoughts and statistics + links to related articles, surveys, videos and other materials aiming on changing popular (not too positive, to put it gently) perception about the people who are homeless. Here are the opening paragraphs:

It is universally acknowledged that the first wave of homelessness occurred when the mental health system was abolished. Many would argue that a second wave of homelessness occurred when vast amounts of affordable housing were eliminated. I would argue that a third wave of a more desperate, intractable, and frequently violent phase of homelessness has been created by our vast prison system.How many people enter the prison system homeless? How many leave our prison system with no fixed destination? What subset of the 70 percent of ex-felons who return to prison are homeless?

Just for public safety reasons, you might assume the correctional system would want to know those numbers. A homeless person, by definition, is a wild card. You cannot know where they are at any point in time – much less immediately after a crime has occurred in the vicinity.Surprisingly, according to both California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) research division and the voluminous reports on its website, the prison system does not explicitly track that information.The rest is here...

Monday, March 28, 2011

It wasn't without slight trepidation that I assisted Lynnda and Tracy in making chicken curry and rice last Thursday; 2-3 pot meal details are a bit harder to control than one pot soup. But we did well: Lynnda brought an electric frying pan where she sautéed chicken, and then potatoes, onions and carrots, while Tracy, Jarvis and I cut up a mountain of vegetables. We set one pot with brown rice to simmer, and another pot where the fat droppings from electric pan + about 10 cans of coconut milk went; to the second pot we added our fresh chopped veggies, then chicken and veggies sautéed earlier. After the mixture simmered long enough Lynnda seasoned it with garlic/ginger sauce she prepared earlier, salt, copious amount of curry powder, garam masala and few other spices. Tasting it told us both that a bit of 'something' would bring the curry stew together - so we hunted the kitchen and added a big can of diced tomato, then 2 huge bunches of cilantro that Tracy just finished chopping and voila: very tasty chicken curry.

When I was checking if the rice is done, Lynnda said: 'put a stick of butter in it'. She and I have different approaches to Nickelsville's cooking: hers is to make gourmet comfort food - as homey and tasty as possible (it works! - people love her coking); mine has more of a healthy slant: low fat, lots of veggies, hardly any diary; now our styles collided. But Lynnda is the chef on Thursdays so I obliged (well, cheated a bit, 3/4 stick of a butter for huge pot of rice), while musing that hopefully there is never a Nickelsville's vote to rate our cooking, because I have no doubt who would be voted out of the island.

Over Brooke's delicious cupcakes for dessert Karen and John shared small picture albums. Karen's contains a picture of herself from 20 years back (she didn't change that much, except now she is not wearing makeup), glamour shot of her daughter, then home and backyard pics of her children and grandchildren - they all live on the other side of the country, so photos are all Karen has for now. John's album was about his life in China: he and his wife, their home, holidays pics, street scenes; a life he hopefully can resume soon.

Joan Laage

Richard told me that Nickelsville voted to see a performance of Japanese dance butoh, kindly donated by Joan Laage, a professional butoh dancer. John said that after reading an article he thinks that an explanation of this rare form of dance would help in appreciation of the performance. Now it's time to schedule it with Joan and perhaps prepare a small flyer.

Butoh is a dance expression that emerged out of post-WWII Japan. During a time of heavy Westernization and atomic disaster, many Japanese artists sought expression that moved towards more authentic self-identification. Tatsumi Hijikata developed Ankoku Butoh, which translates to "dance of the dark soul." Almost 50 years later Butoh has evolved and branched out all over the world and is in a constant state of change.

One and a half months before Nickelsville moves away from the fire station - where will they go is still up in the air. Everyone is calmly talking about it, Jeremy mentioned that stuff they acquired will need to be packed and put in storage and generally there is a talk about downsizing, as Nickelsville likely will return to living in tents, without indoor kitchen or storage room, as they have now.

A few weeks ago 3 years old sponsorship of Nickelsville changed from Veterans for Peace to.... i have to dig that info up and put a link to the new organization.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

• Kids clothes needed: Presently there are three children living in Nickelsville, ages/sizes: 4 yo girl, 6 yo boy and 10 yo boy. If you can share some clothes fitting them it would be greatly appreciated.

From Scott's email update this week:Monday the 28th of March, there will be a community meeting at the Mennonite Church in Lake City starting at 6 pm, where we will have an open forum with our neighbors and Deputy Mayor Darryl Smith. Any body that can show up as moral support would be greatly appreciated. We simply want a permanent site to go to in May, and let an experienced shelter organization like SHARE and WHEEL do indoor shelter - both a self managed shelter and a second wet shelter - at the old Firehouse.As always, any message you send to the Mayor's or Council-Members office carries a great weight.

• Puppies: Four adorable Chihuahua puppies were born in Nickelsville February 21; besides human family they have extended four-legged family, because Mama Xyzema and Grandma Honey Bear are permanent Nickelsville's residents, too.

• From China to Nickelsville. In November 2010 John had a life in southwest province of China - he has a wife and house there and has been teaching English for the last five years. Then he was robbed and lost his wallet and everything in it, including his passport; a trip to American embassy produced a strange effect - John was sent to back to US to the tune of $1800 (one way ticket) to get his new passport there, because our country is not set up to help citizens who loose their documents in China in any other way. Before John gets his new passport he has to pay back US government for the ticket (and a new passport, of course) - so here he was, back on the home soil, but homeless. His story is going to have a happy end, because Nickelsville shelters John while he works for the local tele-com to raise money he owes for ticket, the new passport and of course another one-way ticket back to China - hopefully at the end of April. Also, Uncle Sam is a lousy travel agent: John says he will easily find ticket back home half that price, and cursory checking Seattle- Beijing flights on Expedia.com for 4/30 confirms that: 8 tickets in the range $520-$600, and another dozen under $1000.

Nickelsville's bike fleet

• More about the greening of Nickelsville: Last year residents successfully experimented with a contained herb and vegetable garden (photographed last year, check the older posts), and they are going to continue and expand coffee- and tea-container gardening this year, too. Also, they have a fleet bike, for common use.

• Cooking: Since Lynnda joined the cooking project we moved from simple soup-making to almost gourmet level, as Lynnda enjoys cooking fuller meals. On Mondays, when I come alone it's usually good good old West African peanut soup, but when she joins on Thursday it's another story: shrimp linguini last week, chicken curry with rice today and chicken corn-chowder next week. Lynnda also likes baking and brings cookies/cupcakes for dessert; now she got her daughter, Brooke, baking for Nickelsville, too - we will taste her cupcakes today. Thank you, Brooke!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Nate has been a resident of Nickelsville for a few years. He’s their bookkeeper and also the driving force behind the effort to go green. He is their resident inventor and the energy behind planning for a smaller carbon footprint for Nickelsville.

Today he showed Aleks and me his cyclotron, a device he created to produce electricity. I am not an electrical engineer, nor is Nate, but his contraption is quite inspiring. He uses half of a bike, upside down.

Cyclotron: it powers Nat's laptop,
cell phone and MP3

The wheel has magnets attached to both sides of the rim. There is a board encasing the wheel with coils of copper wire attached, and when the wheel is manually turned using the pedal, electricity is produced from this electro-magnetic field. An old car battery is used to store the electricity, and with an hour of turning the pedal, all sorts of electrical devices can be charged. Nate is still building his cyclotron, and with more copper coils in the future, and perhaps a better car battery, he will be able to create electricity more quickly.

This is only the beginning of the possibilities when necessity becomes the mother of invention. He also showed us a contraption that he uses to wash his clothes. It’s made from found items, and powered by him, and takes about 30 minutes to wash a complete change of clothes.

Not everyone in Nickelsville is tuned into the green scene, but it’s Nate’s hope that this will become a more important part of their community.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

I had my camera with me last time and after photographing Nickelsville's pets I asked if anybody feels like having their photo taken for the blog. Nate didn't mind, so here he is, with a part of his prototype water-mill invention. Nate is into green technology and is working on several projects which are focused on producing clean energy from renewable sources. It was the end of my visit, so I have to wait to see the rest of his work, but I was struck how precisely his piece of mill was bent and cut - made of recycled soda cans, of course... Nate is also Nickelsville's bookkeeper.

Mike just returned from VA hospital - he was admitted twice in the past week, so hopefully it'll be better from him from now on - I saw him walking into the room and placing a kiss on his sitting at the table wife's head; she surely was happy to see him, as it was hard for her to visit downtown hospital and their only connection was via phone.

The soup was minestrone, of sorts - we used up a huge bag of kindly donated hand made, artisan, gourmet type of noodles - the ones that are widely cut and taste like freshly mama-made: soft and buttery. They require good 20 minutes of cooking, so we started with that, while the chef for the day, Mike P., chopped the rest of the ingredients: onion, carrots, cabbage + parsley, then opened several cans of diced tomatoes and kidney beans that we found in the cupboard. We seasoned the soup with chicken broth granules, italian seasoning (thyme, oregano, marjoram, rosemary) and added quite a bit of red pepper flakes for a kick. We finished it with fresh chopped italian parsley and garlic - while Mike P. and I were in the kitchen, Richard was at the big table in the garage, doing his usual contribution of chopping a whole head of garlic into a finely crushed pulp. That was soup #1.

Soup #2 happened after I looked into the pot when several bowls of soup were already eaten: the pasta was furiously expanding and eating up the juice:(. We were out of chicken granules and didn't want to just water down the soup; fortunately I found in my car (don't ever ask what else is in my car 'just in case') 7 packets of organic shitake mushroom gravy, so we cooked that in in separate pot, a watery version version of the gravy and added to minestrone. The evening folks had shitake/minestrone.

T.J. is allergic to mushrooms, so I was looking around to warn her not to eat it, but found out she left Nickelsville and went to Montana, where her boyfriend is hoping to get a job; Falcon is in emai contact with her, so hopefully we will hear about their adventures in the big sky country.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

It's been a long, wet, and rather cold winter in Seattle - we have not seen much sun and lots of people have all kind of respiratory problems, even more so in Nickelsville, where many residents are coughing and sneezing, probably because of limited access to healthcare and relying on over the counter, mostly donated and always in shortage nyquil and aspirin for cure.

Last Tuesday, when my friend Lynnda and I visited to cook the soup with Tracy, the kitchen manager, I asked about Tracy's husband Mike - he loves to cook and usually can be found around the stove at all times, merrily creating meals for the whole community, but absent that day. Turned out that Mike went to VA hospital to check on his persistent cough and was admitted for bronchitis, and possibly pneumonia. Mike spent around 20 years serving in US army; what do you think about the level of civilization of a country that allows its longtime veterans become homeless? Well, frankly, I think it barbaric, and not civilized at all. It's great that he still has some medical coverage through VA system (which I believe does not cover his wife, and WHY not?), but we really should do better as a society towards people whom we ask to put their life on line. And this comes from someone who is against wars of any kind. Hope you fell better soon, Mike! Best wishes!

Lynnda wanted to share one of her favorite soups with people of Nickelsville: she soaked the a big batch of black beans a night ahead, and we set them cooking in a pot as soon as we got to Nickelsville on Tuesday afternoon. While the beans were simmering Tracy, Lynnda and I chopped onions, celery, carrots and green peppers, which we later sauteed, before throwing them into the bean pot to let it cook together for a while. Lynnda adjusted seasoning: salt and coriander, while Richard worked on finely chopping a head of garlic and Tracy gave her attention to finishing touches: chopping cilantro and squeezing the lemon juice.

When the soup was almost done (and smelling heavenly) Lynnda produced the secret ingredient: SALSA. She said it's still a secret what's in salsa, so it's Ok to blast it on the internet: figure out your own salsa to spice your black bean soup with :).

Later we shared the soup at the big table in the heated garage, with sour cream and cheddar cheese as garnishes. Nice conversation at the table.

Richard, Nickelsville's historian

This is a picture of Richard that Lynnda snapped last Tuesday, with his permission. Richard is one of the few original residents of Nickelsville, with the camp since its inception on U-district parking lot in winter of 2008. He is kind of historian of Nickelsville, always keeping track of its comings and goings, and a source of information for many of my previous posts - if you read this blog backward, you will see his name popping up all the way to the day I started this blog.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

About a week ago I read Scott's letter to Nickelsville's 500+ supporters on the google/group-list; it was so interesting I'm quoting it below in full.

Below the letter is a clip about homeless children in America; it comes from '60 minutes' program of our normally horrid propaganda TV... I haven't been watching TV for more than a decade or two, but read about this CBS report on the internet, so I found it for you: watch and weep - too many of our children are falling below the poverty line...

Scott's letter about newest developments here:DEAR FRIENDS:LAST THURSDAY NICKELSVILLE DELIVERED A LETTER TO THE OFFICE OF THEMAYOR. WE REMINDED MAYOR MCGINN AND DEPUTY MAYOR SMITH THAT, PER OURCONTRACT, WE'RE GOING TO MOVE ON MAY15,2011. IF HE IS WILLING WEWOULD MOVE TO THE SUNNY JIM SITE 'AS IS' AND PAY OPERATING COSTS.IF, IN THE FUTURE, HE DECIDES THAT ANOTHER GROUP SHOULD USE THAT SITE,WE WOULD LEAVE AT HIS REQUEST.IF THE SUNNY JIM SITE IS UNAVAILABLE TO US ON MAY 15TH WE WILL MOVE TOANOTHER SUITABLE SITE WHERE WE CAN CARRY ON WITH NICKLESVILLESTRADITION OF ALLOWING FAMILIES WITH CHILDREN,PETS,AND THOSE THINGSNEEDED FOR A PERSON TO FEEL COMFORTABLE, SAFE, AND SECURE.WE NICKELODEONS ARE GOING TO STICK TOGETHER AND ACHIEVE OUR DREAM -A PERMANENT SITE, HOSTING UP TO 1000 MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN WITHPETS, LIVING IN SMALL SIMPLE STURDY SLEEPING STRUCTURES.WE'RE GOING TO CONTINUE DISCUSSIONS WITH THE MAYOR AND CITY COUNCILHOPING TO REACH A SUITABLE AGREEMENT. WE WILL CONTINUE TO STRIVE TOHAVE A ECO-FRIENDLY COMMUNITY. WE WANT TO WORK TO MAKE THIS A SUCCESSFOR THE CITY OF SEATTLE, THE RESIDENTS OF NICKLESVILLE, AND TO SET ANEXAMPLE FOR THE REST OF THE COUNTRY.IN THE LETTER WE ALSO ASKED MAYOR MCGINN TO ALLOW OUR FRIENDS AT SHAREAND WHEEL - BEGINNING ON MAY 15TH, 2011 - TO USE THE LAKE CITYFIREHOUSE AS BOTH A SELF MANAGED SHELTER AND A WET (STAFFED) SHELTER.THIS WAY THERE WILL BE A LASTING BENEFIT FOR LAKE CITY AND SEATTLE'SHOMELESS, WHATEVER HAPPENS TO US.NOW, AT THE BOTTOM OF THE NICKELSVILLE WEBSITE, YOU CAN GET TO BOTHOUR LETTER TO MAYOR MCGINN ABOUT THESE THINGS, AND ALSO SHARE/WHEEL'SLETTER.YESTERDAY (TUESDAY) WE FOUND OUT FROM THE PRESS THAT MAYOR MCGINN HASSENT AN ENCAMPMENT PROPOSAL AND DRAFT ORDINANCE TO THE CITY COUNCIL!WE ARE ALSO PUTTING THEM UP AT THE BOTTOM OF THE WEBSITE, SO YOU CANSEE THEM YOURSELF. BELOW ARE THE FIRST THOUGHTS OF THE NICKELSVILLECENTRAL COMMITTEE ABOUT THIS NEW DEVELOPMENT:We appreciate many of the Mayors Actions:1) He has been working hard, and we appreciate his meeting withus, and visiting our home.2) We appreciate the efforts of the Homeless Encampment Panel heappointed, and support their recommendations3) We are thankful for the 6 months stay given us in the Old LakeCity Firehouse4) We appreciate the many occasions when Deputy Mayor Smith hastaken the time to meet with us.6) We respect his proposal for a City Sponsored Encampment andknow that this is a Big Step for the City of Seattle.Some of the problems with the Mayor’s Plan for the Sunny Jim Site1) Children not accepted. People need to be with their families.2) Term limits – how does it make sense to remove people after ayear when the waiting lists for affordable housing are often longerthan a year?3) Shut down the Sunny Jim facility after two years? Is thereany guarantee that homelessness will be resolved by then?4) Timeline –it says the start date is 9/11 but Nickelsville ismoving on 15 May 2011!5) Efficiency of money spent - its hard to see spending so muchmoney on high-paid consultants, ($140,000 for “life coaches” at $22/hr) when we have shown that we can organize and help ourselves formuch less money. Especially when only $15,000 is allocated foroperating costs.6) Requirement that 'life coaches' monitor our Personal SavingsAccounts and specify what we spend money on. We feel that this isintrusive, micro-managing and counterproductive if the goal is havingpeople behave like adults.7) We object to sending vulnerable people away.8) A 100 person limit may be arbitrary.9) The plan seems to be a 'model' or a 'test' for a hundred peoplewhen what we need to do is help thousands of homeless and at dangerSeattle Citizens have a place they can stay together and safe atTONIGHT.9) The plan implies most of us in encampments are here because we didsomething wrong and we just need fixing. No ones perfect, but thereare thousands and thousands of people homeless in King County due tono fault of our own. The real problems are the lack of good payingjobs, the lack of adequate health care, and the lack of housing we canafford.11) We are concerned at the hoops required of groups wanting toapply.12) It ignores or overrules many of the recommendations that theMayors own Blue Ribbon Encampment Panel made, and doesn't explain why.12) We object to participating in the “Safe Harbors” program. Fiveyears of experience have shown that the SH program is a waste ofmoney, and doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know.13) In general, requiring people to do things based on bureaucraticdiktats & arbitrary percentages doesn't work. Change is often needed,and it should be based on individual situations.Thank you for your support and prayers - we need both!For further information, we would like you to check out these links,https://sites.google.com/a/nickelsvilleseattle.org/www/home/nickelsville-letter-to-the-mayorhttps://sites.google.com/a/nickelsvilleseattle.org/www/home/share-wheel-letter-to-mayorhttps://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1mAFvGbbuLjoAHV-LjpjNWFRWniYFvc3w-Fk3CM7Ut5onxloRq2q__qimJ56n&hl=enhttps://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=1tYgfylNeVzymcmxfZ1YBEwC5KWcshppzTyJ6Lk8UTWxH6eUSgEfvaeXRTuyL&hl=enIf we haven't set the above links correctly, please copy and pastedirectly into your address bar. Sorry for the inconvenience.

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HAPPY NEW HOME NICKELSVILLE!

We, the people of Nickelsville will be moving on May 15th 2011, and would invite and welcome all the supporters that can come help us with our move.

We need help loading pallets, tents, bicycles, cooking grills, and people's personal items onto trucks. We mainly need people to stand with us, united together courage and strenght, staying strong with people of Nickelsville.

Our plans must be flexible. It is CRUCIAL you contact us now, so we now who to alert to changes, and who can help. Please contact our staff today and tells them him you will help. Our phone is (206) 450-9136. The email is scott@nickelsvilleseattle.org.

ATTENTION: BARBECUE PROPANE GRILLS NEDDED - after the move on 5/15/11 there'll be no kitchen again, so if you have extra BBQ grill or are about to get a new one, consider donating your old/extra one to Nickelsville. aleks

• You can donate CASH to pay for telephone, garbage, etc; you can mail your (tax-deductible) donation to this address:

Nickelsville P.O Box 2548

Seattle, WA 98111-2548

flowers in front of someone's home

Why this blog?

February 2nd, 2009

i started to cook soup for nickelsville, a tent city for the homeless in seattle, around october 2008. i wanted to learn about the lives of the people there, so i've been coming twice a week to find a volunteer to help me cook. we cook in the nearby lutheran church, put the soup into plastic food bucket and bring it back to the camp.

some of the things i learned surprised me quite a bit: many residents have a job they go to, there a quite a few couples there, two kids were living there before the december snow-storm (went to shelter since), the rules to stay there are pretty harsh to follow, there are several kitten residents. today i saw a tent adorned with spring pansies - it gave me a pause.

this blog has been created for the sole purpose of partially documenting nicklelsville's university-district period: october 08 through march 09.

links:

TO: mayor Nickels & governor Gregoire

DATE: 3/22/2009, Seattle, WA

dear Mayor Nickels and Governor Gregoire,

the tent cities are spreading all across america, and finally even making news in corporate media (cnn recently showed a tent city in sacramento and even Ophra had a show about it). many people in tent cities are victims of the poor economy. they never intended to become homeless but were forced out from their homes and cars into the street. it is very disturbing and sad.

seattle has several tent cities. i urge you to become informed about the topic and bring attention and relief to people in distress who live in them.

i have been involved in nickelsville during its stay in university district october 08 through beginning of march 09. i cooked soup for them on average twice a week. i learned many people staying there had a job to go every day, and some seemed to be in need of social and medical services.

overall - no-one should be without a roof over the head in the richest country in the world (except maybe AIG ceos, who took all the taxpayers money and are now running the show).

i kept a blog while involved in nickelsville, to document what i saw there. please, look; it is here (link to this blog).

i very much hope you fulfill your obligation to serve the people who elected you to be their representative, including people in tent cities!